The Project Gutenberg eBook, Fated to Be Free, by Jean Ingelow

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Title: Fated to Be Free

Author: Jean Ingelow

Release Date: May 8, 2004 [eBook #12303]

Language: English

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FATED TO BE FREE

A Novel

By JEAN INGELOW

Author of "Off The Skelligs," "Studies for Stories,"
"Mopsa the Fairy," Etc.

1875

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

When authors attempt to explain such of their works as should explain themselves, it makes the case no better that they can say they do it on express invitation. And yet, though I think so, I am about to give some little account of two stories of mine which are connected together,—"Off the Skelligs," and "Fated to be Free."

I am told that they are peculiar; and I feel that they must be so, for most stories of human life are, or at least aim at being, works of art,—selections of interesting portions of life, and fitting incidents, put together and presented as a picture is; and I have not aimed at producing a work of art at all, but a piece of nature. I have attempted to beguile my readers into something like a sense of reality; to make them fancy that they were reading the unskillful chronicle of things that really occurred, rather than some invented story as interesting as I knew how to make it.

It seemed to me difficult to write, at least in prose, an artistic story; but easy to come nearer to life than most stories do.

Thus, after presenting a remarkable child, it seemed proper to let him (through the force of circumstance) fall away into a very commonplace man. It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for in real life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with the prints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written for grown-up people are kept almost clear of them. It seemed proper also to make the more important and interesting events of life fall at rather a later age than is commonly chosen, and also to make the more important and interesting persons not extremely young; for, in fact, almost all the noblest and finest men and the loveliest and sweetest women of real life are considerably older than the vast majority of heroes and heroines in the world of fiction.

I have also let some of the same characters play a part in both stories, though the last opens long before the first, and runs on after it is finished. It is by this latter device that I have chiefly hoped to give to each the air of a family history, and thus excite curiosity and invite investigation; the small portion known to a young girl being told by her from her own point of view and mingled into her own life and love, and the larger narrative taking a different point of view and giving both events and motives.

But in general, while describing the actions and setting down the words, I have left the reader to judge my people; for I think many writers must feel as I do, that, if characters are at all true to life, there is just as much uncertainty as to how far they are to blame in any course that they may have taken as there is in the case of our actual living contemporaries.

But why then, you may ask, do I write this preface, which must, if nothing else had done so, destroy any such sense of truth and reality? Why, my American friends, because I am told that a great many of you are pleased to wish for some explanation. I am sure you more than deserve of me some efforts to please you. I seldom have an opportunity of saying how truly I think so; and besides, even if I had declined to give it, I know very well that for all my pains you would still have never been beguiled into the least faith as to the reality of these two stories!

London, June, 1875.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. A WATCHER OF LILIES II. THE LESSON III. GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS IV. SWARMS OF CHILDREN V. OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN VI. THE SHADOW OF A SHADE VII. AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL VIII. THEY MEET AN AUTHOR IX. SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER."—CANADA X. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES XI. WANTED A DESERT ISLAND XII. VALENTINE XIII. VENERABLE ANCIENTRY XIV. EMILY XV. THE AMERICAN GUEST XVI. WEARING THE WILLOW XVII. AN EASY DISMISSAL XVIII. A MORNING CALL XIX. MR. MORTIMER GOES THROUGH THE TURNPIKE XX. THE RIVER XXI. THE DEAD FATHER ENTREATS XXII. SOPHISTRY XXIII. DANTE AND OTHERS XXIV. SELF-WONDER AND SELF-SCORN XXV. THAT RAINY SUNDAY XXVI. MRS. BRANDON ASKS A QUESTION XVII. THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY XXVIII. MELCOMBE XXIX. UNHEARD-OF LIBERTIES XXX. A CHAPTER OF TROUBLES XXXI. A WOMAN'S SYMPATHY XXII. MR. BRANDON IS MADE THE SUBJECT OF AN HONOURABLE COMPARISON XXXIII. THE TRUE GHOST STORY XXXIV. VALENTINE AND LAURA XXXV. A VISIT TO MELCOMBE XXVI. A PRIVATE CONSULTATION XXXVII. HIS VISITOR

CHAPTER I.

A WATCHER OF LILIES.

"Unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."—Collect, English Communion Service.

In one of the south-western counties of England, some years ago, and in a deep, well-wooded valley where men made perry and cider, wandered little and read less, there was a hamlet with neither farm nor cottage in it, that had not stood two hundred and fifty years, and just beyond there was a church nearly double that age, and there were the mighty wrecks of two great oak-trees, said to be more ancient still.

Between them, winding like a long red rut, went the narrow road, and was so deeply cut into the soil that a horseman passing down it could see nothing of its bordering fields; but about fifty yards from the first great oak the land suddenly dipped, and showed on the left a steep cup-like glen, choked with trees, and only divided from the road by a few dilapidated stakes and palings, and a wooden gate, orange with the rust of lichens, and held together with ropes and bands.

A carriage-drive was visible on the other side of the gate, but its boundaries were half obliterated by the grass and weeds that had grown over it, and as it wound down into the glen it was lost among the trees. Nature, before it has been touched by man, is almost always beautiful, strong, and cheerful in man's eyes; but nature, when he has once given it his culture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying his hand upon it, and touching it with his life. It has come to relish of his humanity, and it is so flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and permeated by his spirit, that if the stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it cannot for a long while do without him, and live for itself as fully and as well as it did before.

There was nothing to prevent a stranger from entering this place, and if he did so, its meaning very soon took hold of him; he perceived that he had walked into the world of